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The Brexit Trick

This will not take long. I am able to give this guarantee because I am writing about the British Government’s “Plans”. This is a subject matter that is almost bereft of content: in all essential substantive particulars, Conservative Planning is a nullity.

On Monday, 20th March, on a visit to Wales Theresa May informed an expectant British public that “We have a Plan for Britain”. Since then keyboards have melted and forests have died in the search for the specific, real terms of this “Plan”. Nobody has found it, or uncovered any content at all. Nothing has “leaked” into the public domain either; typically a sign that there is nothing there to leak (for all Government is deliberately constructed as a sieve).

We have already been given a ‘dry-run’ of Conservative planning capacities, from the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote; when the Brutus and Cassius of Conservative Leave, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, faced with the prospect of leading the Referendum victors, and presenting Britain with the substance of their vision, their “Plan”: immediately and abjectly fled the field. The Conservative Party, subject to its own long history of bad judgements about people; immediately appointed Theresa May Prime Minister, in order to put the Conservative Party firmly ahead of the National Interest, and lead us into this risible Coalition of Chaos. Since Theresa May’s disastrous appointment to an office she does not have the capacities to fill, what passes for the actual management of Brexit in the Conservative Government effectively handed the problematic functional process to David Davies and – far more importantly – the Whitehall Civil Service.

There rests an even more intractable problem for Britain than the crude, maladroit nature of Conservatism. The Civil Service does not possess the resources, the capacities, the knowledge or the experience to negotiate the Brexit process; of course nobody can admit this, but there it is. The Civil Service does not possess these resources now; nor does the Civil Service have the capacity, or the time, to repair the abyss between where they are now, and where they need to be. Currently the Civil Service are hiring people by the hundred to close an impossible gap; but not from a pool of applicants that already have the professional expertise or the accumulated detailed experience required to cope with the scale of the operation. This kind of international knowledge, the deep, longstanding culture and skilled resources required to consider undertaking such a process and expect viable outcomes, can only be found in very few, very large civil international operations. On the scale required for Brexit, and across so many complex areas, these skills are typically to be found only in the US or EU. The EU has been negotiating on Britain’s behalf in international trade for forty years. The EU therefore possesses not just all the EU’s knowledge, but effectively, ours. In this specific world they know more about us than we do. The EU, and the EU alone already has all the necessary expertise and resources because that is what it is designed to do; for us. It follows that it possesses the culture and the knowledge we need: and we do not.

Deep down the meaning of “no deal is better than a bad deal” reflects more critically than ‘choice’ or (laughably) Britain’s ‘freedom’, the fact that Britain has entered a world in which it is “over its head” and far out of its depth. “No deal”, cruelly but realistically, represents an important indication not of our negotiating ‘stance’, but of our real capacity to do any deal in the time, and on the scale required.

“Deep down the meaning of “no deal is better than a bad deal” reflects more critically than ‘choice’ or (laughably) Britain’s ‘freedom’, the fact that Britain has entered a world in which it is “over its head” and far out of its depth. “No deal”, cruelly but realistically, represents an important indication not of our negotiating ‘stance’, but of our real capacity to do any deal in the time, and on the scale required.”

More important than “no deal is better than a bad deal”, as a measure of Britain’s idea of a “Plan” is Theresa May’s other great contribution to the lexicon of the utterly meaningless: “Make no mistake, the central challenge we face is negotiating the best deal for Britain in Europe.” (19th May). The words “the best deal for Britain” have been repeated more often by Conservative politicians than any other statement on Brexit. The Conservatives have already turned it into a form of devout conviction. Let the buyer beware. What does it mean? Nobody knows. Nobody knows because nobody knows what is in the “Plan”. The Conservative solution to the ensuing problem; how do you persuade a gradually more anxious and suspicious electorate that they do not need to know the “Plan” to believe in the “best deal”; but can trust in the Conservatives to deliver it? Tell them that the Plan is a secret because we cannot give away our ‘negotiating hand’ to the “other side”: the EU. This is what we are asked to believe. It misrepresents the nature of these negotiations and the priorities of the EU, but that line of argument – after all – was always a ‘red herring’.

The Conservative insistence in telling the British people nothing about the British negotiating position is not based on wise negotiating strategy, but is rather a simple function of the chaos at the heart of Conservatism. The Conservatives do not understand enough about the complexities and consequences of adopting any final position on anything specific at all in the negotiations for reasons of simple ignorance of the facts, because in twelve months they have still learned virtually nothing. The Conservatives are terrified of discovering, soon after negotiating any specific issue, that they may have alighted on a ‘hostage to fortune’ (their whole 2017 election strategy is a recent example of this outcome). The “best deal for Britain” is not a secret because of what the EU would then know, but has a much simpler purpose. The “best deal” is a secret because the British Government requires to keep it a secret from the British people, not the EU; revealing the (largely illusory) “Plan” to the British people is not an option for a Conservative Government and Party intent on remaining in power, no matter what.

Neither Theresa May nor the Conservative Party can afford to negotiate any deal at all in the EU, and return to the British people with a negotiated settlement of any kind that is not the “best deal”. Which means a deal that nobody in Britain could then unpick, undermine or politically exploit (from any or all sides). How do you achieve this? By defining whatever deal the Conservative Government negotiates as the “best deal”; and then using the Party, the resources of its donors, and its obedient media and press to sell the deal negotiated as the “best deal”, in a total propaganda tsunami. This can only be done if the Government refuses to tell the public anything at all about its “Plan” beforehand, or the content of the best deal. The Conservatives have no idea what the “best deal” will look like; because the ‘best deal’ has to be whatever they say it is, and whatever they have chosen, or are able to negotiate. Think about it.

Very good. This seems an appropriate place to post my analysis of Project Brexit. I wrote it at the very end of last year. I wish I was wrong. I may well post it again somewhere in another six months, and keep doing so until we give the whole stupid idea up.

Project Brexit

I have spent much of the last forty years in the world of major project management. Largely in the oil and gas industry out of Aberdeen, but in other parts of the world as well and in other industries where projects get very big, such as nuclear power, defence and the largest of civil engineering jobs. My specific discipline – the software techniques used to understand and control these projects – is common across all of these industries, as are many, indeed most, of the theoretical frameworks we use to describe and manage these largest of jobs. I am flattered to be described as a “subject matter expert” by my clients in the oil and gas industry, however even SMEs have been quiet of late in the oil industry, and so I turned my attention to the largest project ever undertaken in Britain, Brexit.

The important distinguishing feature of a project is that it stops. This is not manufacturing or running a shop. We make something, deliver it, and the job is over. Brexit is a project. But if we examine it that way without any consideration as to whether it is “right” or “wrong” to do, it is doomed to failure.

In order for a project to be successful, there are some important ingredients. Brexit lacks all of them, except a “Project Must Finish By” date, the only information that we have. In March of 2019 the project finishes.

Let me painfully go through just some of the missing ingredients:

A scope of work. Famously, there isn’t one. It is as if a shipbuilding company had accepted a contract to deliver a ship in March 2019, but nobody knows what sort of ship. All we know is the launch date. This in itself makes the project to build the Holyrood parliament seem well founded in comparison.

Budget. There isn’t one. This project will go ahead no matter what it costs.

Contract Management. We have started this job without knowing what the terms and conditions are. Any of them. I cannot think of an analogy that expresses my horror at this strongly enough, other than to repeat it. We have started this job without knowing what the terms and conditions are. We are going to negotiate the T&Cs as we go along. How many times has that worked?

Benefit analysis. If you believe £350m a week for the NHS, you will believe anything I suppose, but in fairness there was a benefit analysis available this June from the proponents of the project. I do not think I am being too partisan if I suggest it has not stood up to scrutiny. In essence – there isn’t one.

Deliverables. All projects of this size have a list of deliverables, rather than a single event. The channel tunnel for example had operational parameters of availability, running costs, number of passengers, there will have been more I am sure. There are no quantified deliverables for Brexit. “less immigration” “more manufacturing jobs” are aspirations, not numbers. This inflates dramatically the impact of my next heading:

Expectations. When we spend this much money on a project, there are expectations which have to be met. If, for example, our shipyard successfully builds two new ferries, but the service to users on the routes they are deployed on does not improve, then it is likely that the expectations of the users of the project will not be met and the project may not be deemed a success. What do people expect from this project? Everyone has been allowed to invent their own expectations. Madness must ensue. For some it is control of immigration, for some it is leaving the single market, for some “taking back control” whatever that means. One could argue that with no scope of work, no budget, no benefit study and no deliverables, expectation management is impossible. I do argue that. And that means we have no way to measure:

Success. There is no way to measure this. The project must then fail.

I could carry on for a few thousand words more about what is wrong/missing with this project. Can I see the risk register? I thought not.

I am often called in to project control environments to help improve them. I certainly have plenty experience of projects that could have gone better. The simple truth I have observed is that success or failure is determined at or before the start, not the end of a project. Project success is a function of how ready we are to start the project. In more that forty years I have never seen a project less ready to start.

At the risk of tautology, this is technically the worst project I have ever experienced, and I’ve been parachuted into some lulus. It is hardly started and we are at the Supreme Court already.

All of the above just spells failure. Indeed I suspect Brexit cannot be done at all.

Very well put david. I also believe that for any project to be successful ,project management is
probably the most important aspect. Unfortunately, IMO, you can have the best planners, managers
in the world, but political expediancy, from all colour of party, trumps common sense.

Most “normal” countries try to plan ahead, be it energy ( keeping the lights on) ,defence (having
a conventional army/navy for self defence ) or environmental concerns (carbon capture) . Here in
Blighty, short termism is the rule of the day. This, and a total surrender to those only enriching
themselves is the UK today.

Brexit, IMHO is a project, and the backers ( those invisible people behind the scenes) must be
delighted with the progress. Call it a social experiment, if you will, but it is not just the big mess
we see. There are forces out there for whom it is all going swimmingly.

As for the UKOK boys and girls ; This sums them up for me. (Take back “Control ????)

THE PEOPLE WHO GRINNED THEMSELVES TO DEATH
SMILED SO MUCH THEY FAILED TO TAKE A BREATH
BUT EVEN THOUGH THEIR KIDS WERE STARVING
THEY ALL THOUGHT THE QUEEN WAS CHARMING !!

David, I remember when I worked for a Quango, we used a Treasury document (can’t remember what it was called) as an assessment tool when making decisions about whether or not to provide grant assistance (and at what level). One aspect was considering the options available and importantly one of those options was DO NOTHING.

Dear David
I read with great interest your analysis of “Project Bexit”
I’m writing to you now about the aftermath of the Grenfell Towers disaster.
As of today 60 samples of cladding have “failed” safety tests, whatever that means. The proposed answer is to do more testing in panic mode.
I surmise that what is desperately needed instead is a proper project plan for dealing with the slowly dawning fear that we have constructed a huge number of death trap buildings. On the bright side, this looks like a much more manageable project than Brexit.
Given your background can you give any practical advice to me, or better still to the government, on how to replace the current headless chicken approach with something coordinated and workable.
Many thanks in advance
Tom

I posted this before, but there was a computer glitch. Apologies if you receive it more than once, but your help is needed.

Dear David
I read with great interest your analysis of “Project Bexit”
I’m writing to you now about the aftermath of the Grenfell Towers disaster.
As of today 60 samples of cladding have “failed” safety tests, whatever that means. The proposed answer is to do more testing in panic mode.
I surmise that what is desperately needed instead is a proper project plan for dealing with the slowly dawning fear that we have constructed a huge number of death trap buildings. On the bright side, this looks like a much more manageable project than Brexit.
Given your background can you give any practical advice to me, or better still to the government, on how to replace the current headless chicken approach with something coordinated and workable.
Many thanks in advance
Tom

david, got it in one!!! As someone who lectured on project management you have expressed succinctly all that I would take a number of days to get across to students and those who wanted to improve their skills. What a pity that the Conservative party did not hire your expertise some time ago.

Destroy the public sector by adherence to austerity measures and you end up with a civil service bereft of capable people, destroy ‘red tape’ in a ‘bonfire of regulations’ and you end up with a tower block in flames, destroy the truth and you end up with people voting for a project that is doomed to catastrophic failure.

Very flattering, Bill, however I am not sure that I would have made myself available for a project whose major objective was self-harm!

Common Space are considering an article I wrote about risk management and the awful Grenfull towers disaster. It might appear in the next day or so. If I hear any more “lessons must be learned” shite on the television I will put my foot through it. We keep having the same lessons about compromising safety for profit. “Red tape” saves lives. Heaven help us if we leave the EU (which I am pretty convinced can’t happen) and the Tories are in change of HSE.

Summed up the situation perfectly.
Sometimes the scale of things makes it too difficult to comprehend any outcome. By breaking things down it becomes understandable. This Tory government would be unable to buy a second hand car. Thanks for your observations David

why this assumption that the EC has us by the short and curlies and that it is all going to end in tears. The UK is a net contributor. The EU needs our money. As Mr Trump famously put it (when negotiating) “He who holds the gold makes the rules”.

The reason it will end in tears is because the end is undefined and the process to get there has started. Picture a “car” with no steering wheel for example. Strirling Moss in the driving seat wouldn’t help, and we have got Theresa May. John Warren in his article uses the word “plan” in parenthisis for good reason. Plans have certain characteristics. The Tory party Brexit “plan” has none of these. We don’t even get to the bit of the discussion where we proudly tell them that we put more money in than we take out – even if it was true – and over the cliff we go.

I originally though all of the hard/clean/open/soft Brexit talk was analogous to the familar rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic meme. Now it seems more like which sort of self-harm we would like – slashing the inside of our fore arms, or just gouging out bits from the back of our hand?

MODERATOR

Mr Robertson’s email address appeared instead of mine when I “replied” to his post?

What harm did the EU ,do to the working man, and Britishness will have to get thumped out of them as the world has changed, and all that lives in it, are now known as multi cultural race, be it Britain or Africa it makes no difference .chin up,and get used to it.better all together now.

We are not dealing with a normal project but HM government who will define what success means.
However,the EU have stated that negotiations will be transparent so HM government’s usual ploy of keeping things secret from Joe Public will not wash.
Their only option is to walk away.

I am beginning to wonder if the recent thing coming from Westminster about requiring the consent of Holyrood for Brexit is just a way for the Tories to get Holyrood to throw a spanner in the works and abort Brexit. Sighs of relief all round behind closed doors when it grinds to a halt and they can point their drooling leaver hordes at us and say it’s all the beastly Jocks fault that our glorious bid for freedom has been sabotaged.

It seems to me that the best Brexit deal for Britain would be no Brexit at all!
Rescind the article 50 triggering and forget the result of that referendum won on false promises and disinformation.
Say sorry for everything to Europe and ask for forgiveness.

On BBC Andrew Marr today (25th June), David Davies is reported as arguing that the EU states “have a very strong interest in getting a good deal”. On the likelihood of this “good deal” (which it is quite reasonable to assume cannot be the “best deal”) actually happening Davies confesses, “I’m pretty sure, I’m not 100% sure – it’s a negotiation.”

So now the UK’s senior negotiator is “pretty sure” that we will have a “good deal”. Of course we don’t know what a “good deal” is; any more than we know what the “best deal” is; but I suspect you should start trying to figure out how far short of the “best deal” a “good deal” is – although you would be completely wasting your time. You are never going to find out.

But when David Davies says he is “pretty sure”, we may deduce that he isn’t certain, and from experience of listening to Conservative spokesmen in recent months, when they are less than certain (almost always), you can be pretty sure that they have no idea whatever what is about to happen. The Conservative Brexit strategy is one Big Bluff, and the people they are bluffing are not the EU professionals; it is you, the British public that is being bluffed: Big Time.

There is a sneering tone to this article and all its approving comments. I ask John Warren and all the other commentators above, what else could The Tory Party have done? Their MPs wanted a referendum. They put it in their manifesto in 2015. They were elected. They delivered the referendum and the majority voted to Leave.
Nowhere in the article or the comments above does any one ever say where they think as they see it the mistakes in the process were made. OK one commentator David the Project Manager makes the valid point ‘where’s the plan? But it is worth pointing out that it is possible that it was a lack of a plan that helped Leave win it. And when he concludes “Success. There is no way to measure this. The project must then fail.” he strays into hyperbole. In 40 years time of course there will be key indicators to measure whether Brexit was a success or a failure.

“What else could the Tory Party have done?” The Conservative Government should have resigned when the major policy of the Government (a Conservative sponsored referendum in which the Government officially backed ‘Remain’ – including Theresa May) was soundly defeated. The fact that Conservatives (unofficially) decided to stand as the leadership of both sides of the campaign demonstrates only that the Conservative purpose was to ensure the Party would not be separated from power whatever the outcome; this was a contrived abuse of the constitution. You may say they were not constitutionally obliged to resign. I say that this simply demonstrates that the Conservative Party has no sense of honour. What would have to happen; how bad the circumstances; what would they have to have done; precisely what would it take for the Conservatives, ever voluntarily to surrender power? Precisely? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I should add that no sneer was intended in the article, nor do I believe there was a “sneer”; I did however point out (endlessly) that there was no “Plan” and there was obviously no Plan (it seems to no effect with Mr McKinnon); however I cannot deny that the article was contemptuous, and perhaps disparaging; but quote obviously the Conservative Government has richly earned both contempt and disparagement: nevertheless, I did not indulge the typical features of sneering; smirking or sniggering, nor am I inclined to resort to that low form of attack, ‘condescension’ (I leave that to Conservative politicians). Mr McKinnon is clearly over-sensitive (a rarity in Conservative supporters). May I humbly suggest that he consider appreciating the art of taking criticism, as well as dishing it out, or better; making a fist of a cogent rebuttal rather than merely offering a peevishly wimpish appeal to being a self-promoted and easily bruised victim); it doesn’t wash. Or to put it simply – physician heal thyself.

Cameron could have seen down the faction in his own party that wanted a referendum. UKIP were a blip, not an existential threat. Fear was at the heart of it.

Their MP’s were whipped into the lobby. On an issue such as this it should have been a free vote. For all parties.

They were elected on many, many things. Cameron, who opposed this nonsense, led them. He was. until recently, the last elected leader of the Tory Party to have won an election. One gets the general impression that any Tory leader is a mere figurehead, you disagree?

On the ‘where’s the plan’ point. Perhaps you are aware of the long game as opposed to the short game? If there was a plan, and you’d need to evidence it, above and beyond being scared of Nigel, it would have been vaguely useful to have put the details in their earlier manifesto’s so that the electorate, that includes you by the way, had an opportunity to see the details. That a short phrase like, ‘Leave the EU” is taken as substantive support is frankly ridiculous.

‘Tis you that veers into hyperbole in your wholehearted support for a nonsense project run by idiots.

40 years is an awful long time. We could, perhaps be a much smaller country due to climate change, we could have other challenges beyond that. Epidemics, economic collapse, whatever. The future is unknown. You sound like a salesman for a manifesto that is basically a set of blank pages with a space at the bottom for my signature.

Everything above the line: erudite and true, and yet it begs a question – an elephant in the room. Why can we in the ScotNat blogosphere endlessly rack up all this great critique, replete with smugness that “we” know how stupid the Tories have been, how doomed the Quixotic Empire 2.0 project is. Yet many of the very Scots “we” consider part of our movement /actually refuse/ to recognise the implicit momentum Tory England’s folly gives independence. Either because “our” arguments aren’t reaching them, because waters are being furiously muddied on the left by idiots like Jim Sillars and Colin Fox, or because of legacy right-wing SNP votes in the North East. Votes which, it is now become perfectly plain, the SNP does not have the institutional wherewithal to simply abandon in pursuit of a rational case for independence.

In effect: /what the hell are WE being so smug about/? We are strapped snugly into the whole Brexit unionist clown car as it hurtles towards the cliff, and we’re too embarrassed to do anything more than fiddle with our seatbelts.

“we’re too embarrassed to do anything more than fiddle with our seatbelts”

Which summarises rather well the SNP “standing up for Scotland” strategy, which in reality means leaving the posh Tory boys and girls and their financial backers to do with Scotland as they please. The SNP could instead use their democratically elected Scottish majorities at Westminster and Holyrood to give notice to end the union of parliaments, something even the UN would accept in its quest to end “the scourge of colonization”. But, like every other wee ex colony that took its own independence from the British state, that would require a wee bit courage, which the SNP aint got. “Roaring lions” the SNP are not.

I am interested in your concept of “institutional wherewithal”. Could you explain that concept, for I, for one, have no idea what you mean. Perhaps it is something to do with electoral possibilities, or summat?

For the sake of the moderators, I have never been Alf Baird. If he knew that he and I had exactly the views same views that I do, then he would probably be as offended as me. So, it is ridiculous that my comments should be attributed to him, or vice versa.

Alf Baird and I are two separate people who have disagreements or not. We are not the same thing.

There was a hiccup when I posted this before, so apologies if it gets posted twice.

Dear David
I read with great interest your analysis of “Project Bexit”
I’m writing to you now about the aftermath of the Grenfell Towers disaster.
As of today 60 samples of cladding have “failed” safety tests, whatever that means. The proposed answer is to do more testing in panic mode.
I surmise that what is desperately needed instead is a proper project plan for dealing with the slowly dawning fear that we have constructed a huge number of death trap buildings. On the bright side, this looks like a much more manageable project than Brexit.
Given your background can you give any practical advice to me, or better still to the government, on how to replace the current headless chicken approach with something coordinated and workable.
Many thanks in advance
Tom

it looks like my analysis of one of the problems with Grenfell Tower might be published on the Common Space web site in the next few days. It deals with project risk analysis, and this is more how-to-stop-it-happening-again, rather than how to fix the mess we are in. How to cope with the, lets say, 200 buildngs that need refurbished will just be the usual panic. I cannot imagine government reorganising quickly enough to do a proper job here.

I think the best way to deal with the “headless chicken” approach is simple, imprison some of the chickens. I feel sure this will achieve a level of focus that no amount of public enquireys, apologies in parliament etc can bring. There is a challange here in that the whole purpose of government policy as it relates to social housing has been to obfuscate responsibility in order to maximise profit for the private sector.

But in essence, you re correct. It is just a project. But we have no project manager. That would be the start. Next a budget. Then align the responsibilty with the authority for getting things done. These are very simple steps. Just watch as the idiots in change don’t take them.